Self-organizing multiple access with minimal information: Networking in El Farol bar

In this paper we propose a novel self-organizing resource allocation scheme with minimal feedback information based on minority game (MG). Designing wireless protocols with minimal feedback is especially important, because the price for information exchange in wireless networks is high and reduces the overall capacity of the system. This is especially true for networks that may rely strongly on self-organizing communication schemes, such as wireless ad hoc networks and cognitive radio networks. We apply an MG resource allocation scheme to schedule user transmissions in the network. We combine our MG scheduling model with CSMA (Collision Avoidance Multiple Access) protocol in order to minimize the number of collisions in dense wireless networks. Simulation results demonstrate that MG enhanced version of the CSMA protocol achieves higher channel utilization compared to a standard slotted CSMA without causing serious additional overhead in terms of delay. The MG-slotted CSMA is shown as a paradigm of how self-organized, game based approaches can be used for distributed resource allocation in ad hoc, mesh and cognitive radio networks.